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Shakespeare for DummiesDateline: 11th July, 1999 I am a Shakespeare lover. In fact, I am very near to being a Shakespeare bore. Friends and colleagues warn others not to quote from a Shakespeare play in front of me or I'll pick up where they leave off and carry it on to the end of the speech! And deep in my heart of hearts I really cannot understand how anyone cannot like Shakespeare. Yes, the language is a bit complex for modern ears - after all, it is over 400 years old - but it has such power that I cannot comprehend how anyone can fail to be moved by it. And what he says is so universal: who cannot fail to be pierced by the pathos of "We have heard the chimes at midnight", or to be inspired when told to "eke out our imperfections with your thoughts"? Who is not moved with that strong mixture of sorrow and relief when Kent says, Vex not his ghost: O! let him pass; he hates him The truthful answer has to be, "A lot of people"! In spite of all that we Shakespeare freaks say, people do find his work difficult. And it has been so for a long time: I remember many of my contemporaries at school, back in the fifties, saying that Shakespeare was boring and difficult and they couldn't see what all the fuss was about. I remember, too, being shown Olivier's film of Hamlet when I was about fourteen, and afterwards all that anyone talked about was "the pansy" - Osric! Things are different now. There is a new interest in Shakespeare, thanks to the film world. It had its first stirrings, I think, with the Zefferelli version of Romeo and Juliet: really young main actors, a bit of nudity and shots that seemed to me, at the time, to have been shamelessly lifted from West Side Story, for the first time, grabbed the attention of school kids - or the girls, at any rate. I remember sitting in a schools' matinee performance and not being able to hear the last ten minutes because of the sobs from the teenage audience! Then there was a gap - a pretty big one, really - till Branagh's Henry V and subsequent films, which fired the enthusiasm of those you would expect to like Shakespeare anyway, and then along came Baz Lurrhman and his ultra-contemporary Romeo and Juliet. That got the kids going again, and a lot of others who wouldn't normally consider watching a Shakespeare play. And finally along comes Shakespeare in Love and the Bard is suddenly fashionable. The trouble is, of course, that, apart from these, there's nothing. Let's be honest: the texts are unapproachable. There's the inherent difficulty of 400-year old language, exacerbated by the academic feel that most, if not all, of the easily available texts have. And if you want to read a book about Shakespeare, really all you've got is a huge number of academic tomes which, although interesting and even, in some cases, provocative to the WS afficionado (should that be one "f" or two?), are a bit heavy going for the general, non-expert reader. It is not easy for the man on the Clapham omnibus to find anything about Shakespeare which is pitched at his level. Not until now, that is. This is the gap in the market which the publishers of the X for Dummies series has spotted. I confess I was very doubtful. In fact, I was downright antipathetic, so, when I was offered a review copy by the publishers, I foresaw having a delightful time slaughtering their presumption. This was an eagerly anticipated joy, and when the package arrived from the US, I couldn't wait to get started - I do enjoy indulging in sarcasm! If you listen carefully, you will hear the sound of words being eaten! Yes, this book delivers what it promises: it really does make Shakespeare more accessible. I found its coverage of the language, in particular, very effective, and the way in which its authors deal with the humour of his plays even had a thing or two to teach an old Shakespeare-wallah like me. And that's an admission, if you lke! Every aspect of the plays and their background is covered in a totally non-technical, non-academic manner, and there are summaries of all the plays (with scorecards - about which more later). I found the style of writing took a bit of getting used to - or rather, took a while for me to accept - for it is very like a lot of modern textbooks for schools, but as I read on, I began to realise that there was something missing - that sense of being patronised, of the book being written down to the audience. Now this is something I had found in some other Dummies books on computer subjects which I've looked at in the past, and which had put me off the series. Too often my reactions had been of the "God! does this person think I'm a simpleton or something?" variety, but Shakespeare for Dummies avoids this. There is a respect for the intelligence of the reader which the title belies. My one reservation was the afore-mentioned scorecards. These are tables in which every character's name is listed down the left and every scene along the top. You are given a list of symbols which represent such ideas as "Falls in love", or "Falls in love with the wrong person", or "Goes mad", and you enter these in the appropriate cells as you read the play. I shuddered when I first saw this and the P word came into my mind immediately. But then I thought, well, I do this anyway. I make notes covering just these things, but because I am very much word-orientated, I use words. Why shouldn't people who are more graphically inclined use symbols? No reason, of course: it was sheer prejudice on my part. This is not a book to be read from cover to cover. At least, the later part isn't. You can read the first eleven chapters that way, but the rest is more for reference, for looking at when you need to to. And that's pretty neat job, really: to unite these two disparate functions into one whole. Chalk up another victory for the authors. The last section gives us lists of the ten best this and the ten best that. You know the sort of thing: the ten best Shakespearean actors, the ten best Shakespeare films, and so on. What is good about this section is that it is not US-centric: what is bad about it is that they are occasionally wrong. They just don't always agree with me. As an added bonus, the book deals with the poems and sonnets as well. It doesn't do that as well as it deals with the play, at least in my estimation, but I rather suspect that eight out of ten readers won't look at this section anyway! I have one major criticism: why should a book offered for sale in the US at $16.99 cost £15.99 (about $28) in the UK? Yes, I was wrong. It is a good book. It does what it sets out to do, without patronising and without over-simplification, and I'm pretty sure it will do old Will some good and attract new fans. What more can you ask? Articles Indices: |
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